


His discretion

by emmadilla



Series: 30 Day OTP Challenge [13]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 19:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17566508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmadilla/pseuds/emmadilla
Summary: After the death of her father, Ruby only wants to keep moving forward, ignoring even injury. Charon knows what she really needs.





	His discretion

**Author's Note:**

> 30 Day OTP Challenge
> 
> Day 13: Comfort

Breathing hard, I pushed myself onward, limping slightly as I charged forward. I hadn’t spent long at the Citadel, just enough to drop off the scientists and get the information I needed so I could head out. I was offered a bed, but I wasn’t interested. Right now, I just needed to keep going, keep walking, keep doing something, _anything_.

 

If I didn’t, I felt like I might fall apart.

 

Charon growled behind me. “You’re hurt.”

 

I shrugged it off. “I’m fine.”

 

Another growl. “We should stop.”

 

I was about to protest when I stumbled and fell over a mole rat hole that I hadn’t been able to see as dusk set in. As the long-suffering ghoul helped me to my feet, I couldn’t help but think, _Fuck, he’s right_. Sighing, I gave in. “Fine, let’s find a good spot to camp at.”

 

Most of the time, we just settled for finding a good little hilly alcove we could hunker down in, one that would offer us at least one or two sides of protection from the mutants and mole rats and other mutated creatures that roamed the Capitol. This time, however, we lucked out as we were close to Grayditch, and since we’d already taken care of the source of fire ants, we could easily bunker down in one of the abandoned houses for the night. They were just sitting there going to waste, after all, and while we could probably make it to Megaton from here and spend the night in my own house, the darkness was quickly covering us and I had no desire to listen to Charon complain about us needing to stop any longer. I loved him, but damn he could be a protective mother hen sometimes.

 

So, we walked down the street into Grayditch and selected one of the houses in the middle that was completely intact. After barring the door shut and making a fire in the ventilated upper room, I wrapped my arms around myself and slid down the wall, not feeling like going to sleep just yet. Charon rifled through my pack until he found the first aid kit and approached me with it. “Let me see your leg.”

 

“It’s nothing, Charon.”

 

“A limp isn’t nothing.” Setting his teeth, he repeated, “Let. Me. See.”

 

Knowing that he would have no compunction about holding me down and stripping me of my clothes to get at the injury if I refused further, I again gave in and unzipped my Vaultsuit, carefully peeling it off as I separated it from the white tank that I wore underneath and my underwear before shucking off my boots and pulling the suit off my legs. Then I leaned back and let him go at it, and he was quick to get at the cause.

 

His gnarled fingers swept over a deep bruise on my knee, his brow furrowing ever so slightly as he asked, “When did this happen?”

 

I honestly couldn’t recall the specific circumstance - everything that had happened since my father died seemed like a blur - but I had a pretty good idea of when it happened. “I think it was when we were in the tunnels, running from the Enclave. Probably during one of the blasts.”

 

As he rummaged through the first aid pack, he grumbled, “You should have told me you were hurt, I could have helped you a while ago.”

 

“You would have had me rest, wouldn’t you?”

 

He paused for a moment. “Yes.”

 

I shook my head. “I can’t rest right now.”

 

Charon didn’t stop his rummaging as he asked, “Why not?”

 

My mouth opened as I was about to answer him, but I shut it, realising that I didn’t think I could put the words to what I was feeling. I let my head loll backward and thunk lightly against the wall, closing my eyes as I let Charon do whatever he wanted. His fingers may have been rough, but his touch was gently as he repositioned my leg before I felt a sharp sting. Hissing, my eyes snapped open to see him finish emptying the contents of a stimpak in my knee. Once it was completely empty, he pulled it out and caressed the injection site, brushing off the drop of blood that escaped. I half-chuckled as I asked, “A whole stimpak just for a bruised knee?”

 

His tone was flat and matter-of-fact as he replied, “I’m not a doctor, I don’t know how deep the bruise goes, but if you’re still limping, it’s probably deep. If I didn’t stimpak you now, you’d be worse tomorrow, maybe even unable to travel. And since you don’t want to rest, it’s imperative we be able to move, then.” He packed up the rest of our kit and stowed it in our pack, leaving me in silence as he pulled out some water and food.

 

My stomach flipped, unsure if it even wanted anything, but it would seem that I wasn’t about to get a choice in that matter. Since I was apparently not going to take care of myself, Charon was going to do it for me, and I wasn’t about to win a fight against the giant ghoul. I picked over the food he handed it, taking small bites and pushing the contents around in the can, as if that would somehow make it more appetising. All I could really think of, try as I might to resist, was the sight of my father collapsing behind that glass as he begged me to run. I hadn’t even been able to, hadn’t been able to convince me feet to move, my body to shift from the position it had been in. It had taken Charon physically pulling me away for me to do anything, and even then I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him, not until he was completely out of sight and I was suddenly leading the survivors through the tunnels that would lead us to the Brotherhood of Steel and their protection. As we had made our way from the Jefferson Memorial to the Citadel, however, there was only one thing on my mind. Maybe that’s why I had fallen and injured myself unawares, I was simply distracted, distracted in a way that I wasn’t even sure how to break out of.

 

Sighing, I set aside the can, unable to convince myself to eat more. Charon eyed the can. “You didn’t eat much.”

 

I shook my head. “I’m not that hungry.”

 

He only let the silence rest for a moment before he noted, “You didn’t answer my question earlier.”

 

My mind raced, trying to remember, but I had already forgotten. “What question?”

 

The hulking ghoul sat down next to me, looking me right in the eye as he asked, “Why don’t you want to rest? You’ve never opposed taking breathers before.”

 

At that moment, under his intense, scrutinising gaze, I faltered. The forward momentum that had been keeping me going was gone now, and I could no longer deny the turmoil within me. I wrapped my arms around me and my eyes roamed the room, finally settling on the floor as I answered, “Because, if I stop, then … then I have time to think. To remember …” I choked on that last word and I grit my teeth, willing the tears not to fall. Charon’s hand on my shoulder broke through my final line of resistance and I closed my eyes as I shook my head. “All this work … leaving the Vault, finding Dad, getting Project Purity up and running again, everything that’s been involved in that … it’s all been for nothing. He’s … gone …” Despite my best efforts, the tears started to fall, and I hung my head, embarrassed at my weakness, especially in front of my stoic companion.

 

Charon didn’t say anything, only looped an arm around me and pulled me close to him. Once the dam was broken, there was nothing I could do to stop the onslaught of tears and pain and grief that clawed at me from within. His grip tightened around me, giving me an anchor, something to ground me, and in return I shifted and wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his chest as I shook and sobbed. My chest felt tight and hot and raw, like something had been torn from it and now the wound was simply weeping freely. Everything that I had been through since Amata had woken me up that morning, from what I’d had to do in order to even just leave the damn Vault, to the shock of the wasteland that I emerged into, to every little thing I’d had to do in order to find out where my father was and find him, every battle I’d fought, every stronghold I’d cleared. I could no longer even remember my first kill, something that I had been sure would be burned in my mind forever when it happened. I remembered what I felt when it happened, remembered the nausea and the revulsion sweeping over me in waves … but I couldn’t remember who it was that had met their end by my hand. They were just one in a long line of human beings and creatures alike that I had mowed down in my quest to find my father and then assist him in rebooting Project Purity, his lifelong passion before I’d come along. And now … now it seemed all for naught.

 

I felt his fingers thread through my hair as he murmured, “I’m sorry.” I simply nodded in acknowledgement. What more was there to say? There was nothing more anyone could have done, my father made his own choice to sacrifice himself to save what he could of the scientific endeavour he’d been working on for years. Madison Li had done what she could to preserve as much of their research as possible, and now that was in the hands of the Brotherhood. And I … I had more work to do, to preempt the Enclave and their own agenda. It all fell to me, now, as the Brotherhood didn’t have the manpower to spare to spearhead this. But first, before I went further … now that I was stopped, my forward momentum halted, I had to take a moment to fall apart. To mourn and hurt. To vent this pain before I imploded. It was a break that I hadn’t wanted to take, not yet, not now, but since Charon had forced my hand, there was nothing else I could do but allow it to happen.

 

To his credit, Charon didn’t move, staying by my side as I cried out my anguish until I felt like I was completely wrung out, dehydrated even. Trying to catch my breath, I gasped, “I’m sorry.”

 

He squeezed me. “Do not trouble yourself.” He made no indication to move, and neither did I, finding a certain amount of comfort in his warm, irradiated skin.

 

After a few minutes, I asked, quietly, “Is this all a part of your contract? Comfort?”

 

Without missing a beat, he replied, “I am to tend to my master’s needs.”

 

I softly snorted, feeling hollow as I asked, a bitter edge to my voice, “So is this all this is? Obligation? Fulfilling your duty?”

 

Charon was silent for a moment before he replied, his voice a little softer, “However I fulfill their needs is up to my discretion, in certain circumstances. Unless I am specifically directed to do something, any action I take is my own decision.”

 

The information swirled in my brain, much like his fingertips swept through my hair and over my shoulders. This hurt I was feeling was too deep, too raw to be simply soothed over effortlessly. But what he offered me in that moment, it helped smooth over some of the ragged edges, make me realise that I wasn’t truly alone in this. I had been wanting to deny what I was feeling, to reason that it was simply my circumstances that had drawn me to the ghoul, but over time I found that I couldn’t say that I felt nothing more than friendship for him. As for what he might feel, or if he was even capable of feeling, I was almost afraid to find out at this juncture. And so, for the time being, I buried all the questions and just took the simple comfort he offered. I wasn’t so far removed, however, that I didn’t feel the soft whisper of his lips against my forehead, and my heart beat painfully in my chest as his words rang through my head … _up to my discretion_.

 

I wasn’t in any kind of a state to think about or address these implications, but sometime in the future, I was going to have to explore exactly what was under his “discretion”.


End file.
